How ConveGenius is trying to make education fun and affordable

The startup builds mobile solutions with the aim of improving the quality of education and making it available to and affordable for students.Vinay Dwivedi | ET Bureau | May 22, 2017, 10:18 IST

Jairaj Bhattacharya and Shashank Pandey were working on a research project when they first learnt about the gaps in the Indian education system. “There was a major digital divide when it came to education in the country,” says 28-year-old Bhattacharya.

After graduating from IIT Hyderabad, the two went to work for Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and NASA, USA.

The idea of doing something in the field of education, however, motivated them to leave their cushy jobs and start ConveGenius, an ed-tech company. The startup builds mobile solutions with the aim of improving the quality of education and making it available to and affordable for students in the K-10 category.

“The key to having an educated population is to make quality education affordable to the masses. That is our aim,” says Bhattacharya, Co-founder and CEO.

Founded in April 2013—operations started in January 2014—based out of Singapore and Noida, ConveGenius seeks to make learning a fun activity. Unlike other ed-tech firms, which create their own content, this startup curates content from available resources.

“There is a lot of content available out there but very few parents or kids know how to access it. Our platform aims to curate the best content and make it easily accessible,” says Pandey.

ConveGenius’ product CG Slate aids self-learning experience by providing curated content, as per the NCERT curriculum, in the form of levels/stages of a game. “Gamification is extensively used as a means to motivate learning and curiosity in the child. It is supported with real-time data to effectively measure and improve learning levels,” says Bhattacharya.

CG Slate comes pre-loaded in various co-branded tablets and mobile phones and can also be installed as an app. “The idea is to create an experience which can bring the power to teach and learn on mobile devices with minimal intervention from adults,” says Bhattacharya.

Seeded with an investment of Rs 40 lakh put in by the founders, ConveGenius raised Rs 3.2 crore from a clutch of angel investors in 2015. It also received Rs 6.5 crore from Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Benori Ventures in 2016. The funds have helped the startup scale up operations, boosting its top line from just Rs 20 lakh in 2014-15 to Rs 5 crore in 2016-17. “We have had a five-fold year-on-year increase in revenue and it will continue this year as well,” says Bhattacharya.

When ConveGenius started operations, finding reliable hardware partners proved to be a big challenge. Gradually, through hit and trial, they were able to partner with reliable OEMs to host their product. Its hardware partners now include Samsung, Lenovo, Datawind and iBall.

The other major issue was mapping ConvoGenius’ content with that of NCERT: It required the company to develop a process which could help aggregate, curate and push the relevant content from multiple content partners seamlessly. “This was a huge challenge that we overcame through the aid of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning technologies, developed by us,” says Bhattacharya.

For ConveGenius, which won the Best Edtech Startup to Work For award from Silicon India, the current challenge lies in ensuring consistency in teaching quality among social demographics across the country. “Out of 350 million children in the K-5 segment, only 5% get access to quality teaching. This is an opportunity and a challenge,” says Bhattacharya.

Curating the best content available and transparently tracking and reporting the performance of education system at the grassroots level are among the other problems that ConveGenius is looking to solve.